At last, the trusty sidekick speaks out.

Welcome back to another blog hop, with #OpenBook. Here’s this week’s prompt.

Don’t forget to click the purple button to see what everyone else has to say on this week’s subject. It’s at the end of my post.

Interview one of your characters (not your main character). How do they feel playing second fiddle to your main character?

My character, Andorra Pett, is a reluctant amateur detective. She left her old life in London behind after a shock which made her re-evaluate her life. As her adventures are set in the future, with mankind spreading out across the solar system, she had quite a few options when it came to choosing where to start a new life.

She eventually settled on a mining station off Saturn, where she took over a derelict café. Then the bodies started turning up and she had to find out what was going on; before she joined them.

In all this, she was aided by her former business partner, Cy, who had decided to tag along. This is his version of events.

RD: Let’s talk about you and Andi, she gets a lot of help from you, doesn’t she?

CY: Before we start, I’m not so keen on this second fiddle description. In fact, I think it’s a bit of a cheek to demote me to that role. Sure, I’ve not been present for all of Andi’s adventures and I’ve let her take a lot of the credit but I think I’ve had quite an input into how she’s got on.

RD: OK, tell me about it, from the start. Where did you two meet?

CY: At art college, I was studying tailoring, she was doing design. We bonded over a bottle of white wine and just got on. So well that we decided to go into business.

RD: That was the clothes shop in Greenwich?

CY: Yes, with her friend Maisie and her boyfriend Trevor. We were happy for a while, until Trevor messed things up.

RD: Was that how you ended up on the space mine?

CY: It was, this whole crazy new life started because of what Trevor and Maisie did. Andi felt betrayed and decided to leave. She didn’t care where she went, she was so upset that staying wouldn’t have been possible. She talked about going to the Moon, or the new colony on Mars. I wanted to keep her safe, she can be a clumsy cow and space isn’t the best place to be if that’s your problem.

RD: You thought you’d better keep an eye on her?

CY: that’s right. She’s a lovely person but she’s far too trusting. She only sees the good in anyone, then she gets surprised when they turn out to be anything but. I was determined to save her from doing anything really stupid. I didn’t fancy staying in Greenwich without her, truth be told. The magic had gone. My boyfriend wasn’t happy about me going but, well, you only get one chance at adventure, don’t you?

RD: And you certainly had an adventure on the space mine.

CY: We did, I wondered what she was doing, taking the lease on the café but it all worked out, apart from the murders. I solved a lot of it but I let her take the applause, same as I did later, on Mars. That was another tricky situation, for all sorts of reasons. When it came to the crunch, I’d been knocked out and she had to manage on her own for a while. It gave her a taste for solving puzzles and helping people. Blow me, she only went and left me out of her next two escapades, on Earth and on that new Cruise ship, off Venus. But she did keep in touch and I reckon I helped her out on those mysteries as well. Fortunately, I was back on form when we took our road trip to the Moon and she found another problem for us to solve.

RD: Do you think of yourselves as partners then?

CY: She once said that between us, we made a half-decent detective, so yeah, I think I’m more than a trusty sidekick. I’m the cool voice of reason as she blunders from one self-inflicted crisis to the next. One thing I know for certain, there are bound to be more adventures, she seems to attract them.

RD: Thanks, Cy. It’s nice to get an insight into the real story. Andorra’s lucky to have someone like you on her side.

CY: It’s been great talking to you. Make sure you tell everyone that we’re more than just a one-man band. We’re a team.

Until next time.

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